“I happen to know that that ain’t true. Didn’t yore daughter tell you what happened that night at the Triangle X?”
“She told me what she heard. It was little enough. I don’t believe Marsh intended killin’ Blaze Nolan.”
“Prob’ly not. He just meant to have a man shoot him in the back with both barrels of a shotgun at ten feet. The trouble with some of you folks is the fact that when yuh make up yore minds, yuh stick to it. You made up yore minds that Blaze Nolan was guilty. I hope I don’t hurt yore feelin’s, but I’m goin’ to try and bust up yore perfectly good ideas. Now, I’ll go out and stable my horse.”
He walked stiffly from the room, and the old man’s eyes followed him curiously. Somehow, even with all his prejudices, he hoped Cultus might be able to accomplish it, but the possibility seemed so very remote that he felt sorry for Cultus.
Cultus’s feet were so sore that he could hardly hobble across the patio. He went out through the rear arch and made his way around behind the stable, where he stopped and leaned against the corner. Then he came back, went through the stable and came out. The tall, gray horse was gone again.
CHAPTER XXI: A RUNNING-FOOL HORSE
The next day they buried Buck Gillis in the little cemetery on the slope of a hill, where the sand-scoured old head-boards, each standing at a different angle, marked the last resting places of those who had gone down the long trail. As one cowboy plaintively remarked, “Even an Arizonan ort to be entitled to a little shade after he’s dead, ’cause he shore don’t git much while he’s alive.”
A preacher from Broad Arrow conducted the ceremony, an old friend of Buck Gillis. Buck had no relatives, but there were plenty of mourners among the women, who felt it their privilege and duty to cry a little over the funeral oration, even if they didn’t know Buck very well.
Cultus went to the funeral with Bad News. Mendoza and Tony Gibbs were there, and after the funeral Cultus asked Mendoza if he still had the gray horse at the Circle M.
“You not take heem away?” asked Mendoza.